Chinatown, Exit Bruno A Enter David H, and David H Builds a Tower of Ice Cream Cartons

Ok, so today I bought a camera - a first for me actually. I hate lugging crap around so, since owning a camera entails using it and using it entails lugging it around, I've always avoided buying one. But, now that I'm in Singapore, and now that I know that Singapore is pretty cool (at least that it looks pretty cool), I've finally broken down and bought...a camera. I guess that this would normally be the part in a blog where you would find proof of such a purchase in the form of pictures etc. However, just because I own a camera doesn't mean I know how to do anything fancy with it, like moving pictures out of it and into my blog. That's a lot more witchcraft than my Christian upbringing will allow me to - *scrolls over icon of photograph in blogging toolbar*

"Add picture"

Oh.

Well I haven't taken any yet, anyway, so...You know...

In other news, I went to Chinatown today (funny that Singapore has a Chinatown at all, considering most of the people here are in fact Chinese) to finally drop off the Shiraz film so it could be printed. So I did that, and then I bought the aforementioned camera, which I successfully haggled all the way down from something obscene like 225 singa dollars to 150. Very proud, very proud. By the way, I've been really upset about the whole issue of cameras since I got here, actually. I thought about buying a one in the states, but I was sure that a camera (because surely all cameras are made in Asia) would be cheaper IN ASIA. That, my friends, was not the case. Be warned, fellow globetrotters: cameras are mas expensivo in Asia. Mysterious though it seems, it is very true, and tragically so at that.

Umm...I had real beef ramen for lunch, but I bought it in a dirty foodcourt in Chinatown, so it was naturally very suspect. Consequently, I only finished about half of it. And then I meandered about for a while. While meandering, I noticed that everything in Chinatown is some kind of herbal remedies store, which I thought very odd. All the windows of these stores are stacked with plain metal shelves, and all the shelves are filled with big glass, screw-top jars, and all those are all filled with antlers or various other dried or pickled thises and thats. The stores are a little weird, but only because there are so many of them, and they're all lined up right next to each other. I'm all for antlers and pickled things in glass jars! Let the records show.

In other other news, Bruno A, who was one of my roommates, is no longer with us. He's in the Phillipines now. Ooops. *Philippines. Two "l"s makes a lot more sense than two "p"s - am I crazy? Anyway, for some reason, David H has assumed Bruno's place in the room. A most unfortunate acquisition, this David H. He's the second of the two 17 yr olds living in this apartment - the first of which, Leonardo W, has slept here since I arrived. So now it's me and the two 17 yr olds, Leonardo W and David H.

Though, it could be argued that another presence is strong enough to merit the distinction of being mentioned as a fourth roommate, and that presence belongs to the smell of Leonardo's shoes. For its powerful, powerful, pungent aroma, the smell of Leonardo's shoes is so constant and forceful a presence that it might as well count as our fourth roommate. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have had a conversation with the smell of Leonardo's shoes the other day, but I can't really be sure. Just as the cloud of the smell of Leonardo's shoes drifted over to me and began to speak, David H came hurdling into the room and scared it away by stripping down to his underwear the way he always so annoyingly does when he comes into the room. I actually can't focus on anything anymore, because David H is always doing or saying something annoying.

Just yesterday, I was washing my face when David H's pasty, lanky arms and legs - it should be noted that David H is only arms and legs, a very odd composition of parts for a model, in my opinion - appeared at the bathroom door with a very important question to ask.

"Ah-Ricky?" David H is from the Czech Republic, not that it explains the funny way he lilts his words when he speaks english. His words sound like how a deep spoon looks. If you can imagine how the way a deep spoon looks would sound, of course.

Anyway back to his question: "Ah-Ricky?"

"Yes David?"

"What is your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's?"

I stopped washing my face and looked at him blankly then sighed, "What?"

"Oh. Because. I am just wondering."

"Phish Food," I said. He gave me a dramatic wide-eyed look of disgust, which involved him rinkling his nose, furrowing his brow and raising his upper lip. It was the same look he gave me the day he moved into the room when he asked, much to the chagrin of the smell of Leonardo's shoes, if I had any spray to make the room smell better. "It's a flavor," I said flatly. And with that I went back to washing my face.

Soon enough the room grew a shade dimmer, and I knew that David H and his bright white arms and legs had disappeared from the frame of the bathroom door. I didn't think he believed me about Phish Food being a flavor, nor did I have any idea why he had probed me about which Ben and Jerry's flavor was my favorite.

Then today, after my excursion through Chinatown, I came home, walked into the room, and found atop the bookshelf by David H's bed a tower of empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream cartons with their titles proudly facing outwards in some weird display of triumph or something. At first I was slightly annoyed because I very plainly told David H when I ceded Bruno's empty bed to him last Friday that the top three shelves of the bookshelf were to be MINE. But then I saw the topmost carton of the tower, which read "Phish Food", and I had to smile. And then, since it's my favorite way to feel about David H, I went back to being annoyed.

Look the moral of the story is this: Don't talk to me while I'm washing my face, because in all likelihood, I'm probably feeling very broody about the looming prospect of camera-shopping, and you're probably David H, in which case, anything you do henceforth is bound to be ridiculed in this blog.

Ok, good.

*DUSTS OFF HANDS*

And just like that, day 26 in Singapore was over.

P.S. Ben and Jerry's don't come cheap here in Singapore. 22 bucks a pop, in fact. I'll let you ruminate on that for a day or so. Clearly we have a mystery to solve - the mystery of how David H is able to afford so much Ben and Jerry's.